Meeting highlights role of Parliamentary work to achieve food security

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva today met a group of Iranian lawmakers for talks that focused on the fundamental role of Parliaments in ensuring the broad consensus, sustained political will, adequate budget allocation and effective accountability needed to ensure the Right to Food by all, AVA Diplomatic reports.

Graziano da Silva welcomed the delegation and highlighted the excellent historical relation of FAO with the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as the potential for further expanding cooperation.

He noted that FAO provides technical support to parliamentarians’ activities in the fight against hunger and for food security, through its regional and country offices and invited the delegation to cooperate with FAO in pursuing policies that address contemporary nutrition challenges.

The FAO chief alludedto the technical expertise of the Islamic Republic in many areas of extreme importance for FAO’s work, such as water management and aquaculture, while stressing FAO’s interest in disseminating this knowledge through South-South Cooperation.

The delegation stressed the strong belief of the Islamic Republic in the importance of South-South Cooperation and reconfirmed its willingness to continue its work in expanding cooperation with FAO in that respect.

The meeting also discussed the global problem of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IUU), or “pirate fishing” that threatens healthy ocean ecosystems and sustainable fisheries.

The delegation assured the Director-General of their support in addressing the ratification, by the Iranian Parliament, of the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (PSMA.)

The delegation included Mohammad Ismaeil Niya, Abbas Papizadeh, Seyed Shokre Khoda Mousavi, Habib Broumand Dashghapo, Mohammad Tavakoli and Ali Razeghi, all of them Members of the Iranian Parliament and its Commission for Agriculture.